Archives for June 2014

As an artist, the single most important part of your online presence is the imagery. You want it to look professional, to stand out, to reflect your brand and be an accurate representation of the original piece. And you want tastemakers like bloggers and magazine editors to fall in love with it and help it get more and more attention.

(Keep reading for some specific ideas for protecting your art on the web.)

But the sad, seedy side of the internet is that this can open your work up to being stolen. I’ve heard countless horror stories of people’s original art being used on a company’s tote bags or tee shirts without the artist knowing or allowing it. And while you can’t stop this entirely, there are some things you can do to protect your copyright. I’m going to go at this from the perspective of American artists because those are the laws I understand best. You will have to do some research to find out if your own country has similar laws. And when you’re talking about someone in a different country stealing your designs, the international cross-border laws get even more confusing.

One of the things that I think people fail to talk about is the point behind protecting your images. Partly it’s because you deserve to see the profits that come from your art. You created the piece so you should reap any benefits it provides. But also there is an underlying discussion about the value of art, and moreover the value of an artist. I firmly believe that art is a valuable part of society (and, more warmly, of our lives) and that artists are gifted in a way that others aren’t and that is to be celebrated and respected. Plenty of people agree with me and plenty of people don’t – or are just apathetic. And by enforcing our copyright, artists can stand up to these latter two types of people and take a stride toward them understanding art. So I believe that protecting your copyright doesn’t just protect your bank account, but also has a lot to do with the way art is valued overall.

That being said, I’ve found solutions that work pretty well and I’d like to share them with you to help more artists safely publish images on the web.

1. Watermarks.

This is most people’s solution to the copyright problem. And I’ll say it’s effective. It’s difficult, though not impossible, to get rid of a watermark. Even someone who doesn’t download the image, but rather screenshots it, keeps the watermark on the image. But it’s not my favorite solution because it turns off a lot of bloggers and other people who set trends and can make your work go viral. If you decide to use a watermark, the best way to up your chances of still getting it seen around the web is to make the watermark barely noticeable. So not plastered largely across your entire image. But rather, small, discreet, in the center maybe along the edge of the tree or a line. If you put it off to the side or at the top or bottom, it can be cropped out pretty easily. But if it’s right in the middle, it’s sticking around. At least if the design is stolen, everyone will know who it was stolen from!

2. Meta Data.

When you are editing your image, before you go publishing it around the internet, one of the best things you can do for it is to add data into the code. This data will then travel with the image until someone alters it, which rarely happens. While this doesn’t protect against screenshots, it is the best protection against people who download your image. I believe you can even change the settings so that the image is read-only which would mean no one can edit the data you’ve implanted into the image. Data you’d want to add of course is your name (or business name) and the title of the piece. I also find it helpful to add a website address and tag the image with a few keywords (always thinking about easy SEO!). Just don’t clutter it with too much data – some programs will pull the data for certain uses and it can look really unprofessional if you have all your materials listed, the date the piece was finished, the location it was created in, and you know your mother’s maiden name or something. Keep it clean.

3. Disable Right Click.

There’s code you can insert on your website that makes it so people can’t right click on your images, thus disabling the Save As button. I find this is mostly a protection against people who aren’t thinking about copyright and need a reminder that the image isn’t free to use anywhere they like just because it’s in front of them. Someone who is genuinely trying to steal your work won’t be bothered by this and will find plenty of other ways to grab your image.

5. Cease and Desist.

In the law world, there’s a simple letter called a Cease and Desist Order that acts as a notice and a warning for someone improperly using your images. You can Google a sample letter and adapt for your own use or hire an attorney to help you craft one that is iron-clad. While you don’t have to issue a cease & desist to be able to prosecute someone in court, it’s considered polite to do so and can save both parties a lot of legal fees. Often the offender will simply apologize and remove the images as requested.

6. Court.

If things are out of hand with someone, you can simply hire a lawyer who works with copyright infringement and go to town. It’ll be costly, but can make the statement you want and if you win, depending on the situation sometimes they’ll pay you enough in damages to cover your legal fees.

7. Talking About It.

This is one of my favorites because it’s so often overlooked. People are more likely to walk away from stealing your images if you are open about the ideas of copyright. If you have a copyright notice as a caption or in the description of all your images. If you occasionally blog about your feelings on copyright. If you just stay open and communicative about the issue, people are less likely to take your work. This is partly because you’re no longer an easy target (they know you’ll be looking out for infringement) and partly because of guilt (hey – we’re all human).

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but rather the solutions I know of that are worth mentioning. If you have other means of protecting your copyright, please share them in the comments so we can all benefit from your experience.

A lot of artists find themselves, a few years into their career, stuck accommodating outrageous requests from their customers like always responding to emails within minutes or giving steep discounts to repeat customers.

These can be manageable tasks when you’re just starting out and don’t have a lot of customers. You could sync emails to your phone so you can reply quickly. And you’re so grateful for any money coming in the door that you don’t mind lowering the price in order to make the sale. And really, you just want to give really great customer service so you don’t turn anyone off! You don’t want to lose a sale because you didn’t email someone fast enough, you charge too much, or you otherwise can’t accommodate their requests.

But when you get further into your business, these things can derail you. They keep you busy when you should be painting or photographing your latest illustration or pitching your best series to Anthology.

The worst part, though, is that once you’ve set these expectations for your customers, it’s really hard to back out from under the mess. You’re going to feel stuck and it’s going to be difficult for you and for your customers when you decide to establish appropriate boundaries.

So the fix is really to set those healthy boundaries before your customer service patterns become routine for your customers. Set those healthy boundaries right now. The earlier the better, even if you already have a couple customers expecting too much from you.

One of the best ways to establish simple boundaries is to set office hours. Only respond to emails and phone calls during those hours. Which hours is up to you, perhaps only an hour or two on weekdays or maybe a full work day’s worth of 8 hours. Maybe some on weekends, maybe not. Just make sure a customer doesn’t have to wait more than 2 days for a response.

What if a customer complains? That might happen. Some customers are surprised that you don’t get back to their midnight email until lunchtime the next day. But most won’t begrudge you a reasonable business routine as long as you are upfront when they ask. Just honestly tell them, “I answer emails from 12-1pm on weekdays and again from 5-6pm. Thank you for being patient. Do you have any other questions I can answer for you about the piece?”

It’s very hard for your customer to lash out when you’re being reasonable, measured, and professional. And it actually makes a customer respect you and trust you more because they see you as a real business and not a flaky artist.

The easiest way to curb the discounts issue is to set a maximum discount for yourself. Maybe it’s 20%. That’s reserved for your repeat customers or people who buy 3 or more pieces at once. So then your 15% discount is for really special occasions and your 10% discount is for email subscribers. And once you’ve established these rules, it’s much easier to avoid quoting a 50% discount for someone buying 2 pieces.

What if you already have a customer who you’ve given a large discount to in the past? It’s definitely best to keep that reasonable, measured, and professional thing in mind again. Tell them, “Thank you so much for being such a great customer! I really appreciate how you connect with my art. I wanted to give you a heads-up that I’ve restructured my pricing and it’s going up a little. If you’d like to pick out a few more pieces before my prices raise, you have until August 1st to purchase. Please let me know if you have any questions at all and thank you again for being one of my favorite customers!”

See how easy that was? We just flattered a customer we love anyway, let them know what’s going on, and gave them a chance to be prepared for the change as well. They’ll respond really well to this, and you even have the chance to make some extra sales by giving them some authentic urgency to make another purchase.

So when you run into other boundary issues, before you rush to over-accommodate a customer, think about how it affects your work now and how it will affect your work if you’re busier down the line. Make a rational decision that feels good for you and THEN respond to the customer using the reasonable, measured, and professional approach.